Dear Tech Ops team members,
As shared in today’s Special Jetwire, the Payroll Support Program (PSP) has been extended for our team members through March 31, 2021. With this extension, Congress has recognized the essential work all of you do to keep our nation moving.
With this exciting and heartening news, I’m sure many of you have questions about what’s next for our team. We will share more information in the coming days, but here are some key points to understand:
- Pay and benefits for furloughed team members will be reinstated immediately and retroactive to Dec. 1, 2020.
- Management and support staff team members who were involuntarily separated will be contacted directly about what this means for them.
- We are returning team members to work in phases based on operational need and administrative processing time required. The first group of team members that is being asked to return to work will receive those recall notices in accordance with their JCBA. We expect to continue to return team members to the operation in the months ahead.
To that last point, we’re excited to bring many of our colleagues back to work. The return to work process for Tech Ops will be gradual due to the complexities involved in relocations and station rebalancing. As opportunities open and team members elect to move from one station to another, we will continue to assess staffing levels to ensure stations have the resources they need to support our operation. As a result, opportunities to return to work will be posted in several waves.
The stations identified for staffing increases will be determined based on the network schedule. Therefore, not every station that experienced furloughs earlier this year will see return to work opportunities in the near future.
If a station that experienced furloughs needs to increase staff, team members who had station protection in their basic classification when they were furloughed or displaced from that station will be given the opportunity to accept openings within their basic classification before any vacancies are posted. The process for filling these covered positions is described in more detail in Article 6 of the JCBAs.
Some stations that did not experience furloughs may also see an increase in staffing. Positions in these stations will be posted as vacancies. Any represented team member, active or furloughed, with the appropriate classification may bid on these vacancies. These will be awarded based on the provisions in Article 9 of the JCBAs.
Team members affected by the reductions who are offered the opportunity to fill covered positions under Article 6 of the JCBAs will receive their official notice in accordance with the JCBAs. We’ll be communicating with those team members directly, but be sure to check out the newly-launched Returning to American Jetnet space (www.aa.com/returningtoamerican), open to both active and furloughed team members, for frequently asked questions and other resources on this process.
Despite the obstacles and unforeseeable events of 2020, our Tech Ops team has accomplished so much this year. Our systems are now almost fully integrated, with only the Boeing 737 fleet left to migrate to SCEPTRE, and we’ve continued to improve our tools and harmonize processes. But most importantly, during a time of so much uncertainty, you’ve kept our airline running safely and reliably. As a testament to that reliability, we’ve been entrusted with the crucial task of transporting COVID-19 vaccines. Thank you all for the vital work you continue to do for the country and the world.
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Kevin Brickner Senior Vice President of Technical Operations |